Formerly, a cable network was utilized solely for delivering entertainment; namely, television. With the advent of the Internet and the rise in demand for broadband two-way access, the cable industry sought new ways of exploiting its existing plant. Pure coaxial (“coax”) cable networks were replaced with hybrid fiber networks (HFNs) using optical fiber from the headend to the demarcation with the subscriber coax (usually at a fiber node). Currently, a content-based network, a non-limiting example of which is a cable television network, may afford access to a variety of services besides television, including, for example, broadband Internet access, telephone/voice service, and the like.
With an ever-increasing availability of voice and data communications services over the cable network, many embedded multimedia terminal adapters (eMTAs), gateways, cable modems, and other customer premises equipment (CPE), are provided with a battery backup to help ensure against disruption of services. This is particularly important for life-line or other critical telephone and data services which utilize a cable network as a communications medium, rather than a traditional private branch exchange (PBX) telephone line. Thus, in the event of a power failure and connectivity remains operative, the battery backup provides power to the CPE to beneficially enable users to continue utilizing voice and/or data communications services over the cable network.
Unfortunately, the battery backup is only capable of supplying power for a limited period of time. Therefore, for extended power outages, such as, for example, during severe weather events, depending on the power requirements of the CPE, the battery backup may be depleted before connectivity is restored. In this scenario, the CPE is rendered inoperable even when connectivity is restored but the power loss remains.